Over the last week I've been either tracking or actively beta-testing several open source projects which are worth a quick rundown here. Read on for more.

After being in development limbo for some time, Paint.NET 3.5 Beta 1 has finally arrived. A spiffier interface, a faster and more responsive UI, and a whole slew of other little under-the-hood improvements make this worth the wait. I'm still going to reserve most of my real enthusiasm for the 4.x branch, where we might start seeing things I've long felt were crucial to the program really taking off: adjustment layers, text objects, and multichannel color spaces.

Beta test versions of Intel's Moblin v2 Linux project -- a distribution for netbooks and older machines -- are being published regularly. Note that the current download link is broken; you have to go into the parent directory to get the most current image. That and the betas are very beta: some stuff works great and others not at all. Your mileage will definitely vary. I'm debating between using Moblin or Haiku OS a1 on my current legacy-testing system. (Screenshots and UI here.)

Movable Type 5 might be better referred to as Movable Type 4.7 -- it's not quite as radical a reworking of that venerable blogging/CMS software as I would have hoped. But the beta 2 version is out now and well worth taking for a spin if you're either an existing MT users curious to upgrade, or new to professional blogging and evaluating the range of tools out there.

InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on Sun's future under Oracle. Download the report here (registration required).

Follow me and the rest of InformationWeek on Twitter.